Merlin Mann on Doing Creative Work

I like listening to Merlin Mann. He’s always inspiring. Thing is, he inspires by smacking you in the face with the obvious. Find the time and listen to his talk on doing creative work recently posted on The Sound of Young America. This is Merlin at his best. (Contains adult language.)

The Sound of Young America

danah boyd on e-mail sabbaticals

As I write this I’m listening to an interview with danah boyd about the concept of e-mail sabbaticals. What she does is take vacations and automatically trashes any incoming e-mail while she’s gone. If it’s important enough, people can always e-mail her again when she’s back. The benefit is that when she comes back online, she’s got an empty inbox and nothing to get caught up on. I’m seriously considering doing this while on my honeymoon.

Photo cc-by-nc Ewan McIntosh

Palin Punk'd by Fake French President Sarkozy

JFK on the separation of Church and State

Play:

Download the MP3

The recording of my KCUR appearance

You can of course download it from the KCUR site, or you can listen to it (or download it) right here.

Download the MP3

Random House Audio abandons audiobook DRM

I posted earlier this week about DRM-free free eBooks. Now it looks like Random House is going through with DRM-free (though not $$$ free) digital audiobooks. It seems they've been doing this for a while through eMusic but will be extending it to all other online services (such as Audible and Overdrive I assume.) The most interesting part was this reason given for going through with the change:

[W]e have not yet found a single instance of the eMusic watermarked titles being distributed illegally. We did find many copies of audiobook files available for free, but they did not originate from the eMusic test, but rather from copied CDs or from files whose DRM was hacked.

In other words, people that legally purchased the music and could do what they wanted with it due to the lack of DRM felt no need to redistribute said content in legally questionable ways. Yep. Give us something we can actually use the way we want and we'll pay for it. Don't make us pay for something that locks us out of what we've paid for.

More at Boing Boing.

The End of the Private Life

The unexamined life, said Socrates, is not worth living. For a new generation of Americans and more, the unexposed life is not worth living. Digital diaries, online posts, life loggers and bloggers and Facebook and bed cams are increasingly making the very idea of a "private life" sound antique, retro, pointless.

Today, millions of people are pouring out their deepest intimacies, digitally, for perfect strangers. Ten years from now, says one, we will all have seen each other in our underwear. And maybe sooner.

This hour On Point: when all our kimonos are open - the end of the private life.

Weinberger Interview

For those that missed it, the OPAL archive has an MP3 of yesterday's interview of David Weinberger, author of Everything is Miscellaneous.